What is your policy to promote accessibility and inclusion in education and employment for people with a disability?

I support a human rights approach to promote accessibility and inclusion in education and employment for people with a disability. I will support government efforts that prioritise actions to minimise the risk of violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation, as well as investment in the disability workforce and advocacy space. I believe in the vision of the authors of the Disability Royal Commission’s Final Report that we need ‘an inclusive society that enables people with disability to live, learn, work and engage alongside people without disability’.

As your representative for Bean in the Federal Parliament, I will advocate for the voices of people with disability to be heard more clearly.  We need all levels of governments to work together more effectively and provide adequate funding to achieve this vision.

And what measures would Jessie support to improve the NDIS?

The NDIS was born from a hard-fought grass roots community-led campaign. It has become a lifeline for Australians living with disability and those caring for them, and also provides the Australian community with important economic benefits. 

I have loved ones within my own extended family with disability, and I know that people living with disability and advocates continue to work tirelessly to feed into the Albanese Government’s NDIS reform process.  Sadly, there has been disappointment and distress among many around the reform implementation. Consistent concerns I have heard of include: reforms have been rushed, the current reassessment process is unfair and harmful to participants, small businesses and workers are suffering, codesign is not nearly good enough, and people are anxious about lack of progress on promised Foundational Supports.

While the future sustainability of the Scheme is important, the Government cannot focus on cost containment and chasing down fraud in a way that harms the vast majority of people living with disability.

2025 is the time to get this onto the right track.  My priority will be to represent those living with disability in the Bean community and NDIS participants, their carers and service providers to rebuild trust in the reform implementation process through genuine codesign. As an Independent, I will seek to monitor community confidence in the positive progress of the NDIS reform roll-out and hold the Government to account for this.